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Preventing Muscle Soreness

Posted November 28, 2007 at 11:30 AM by Mark Scott

Section: His Fitness, Strength Training, Injuries & Rehab

Anytime you place an overloading stimulus on the muscle tissue (such as when you lift heavy weights), you are going to create tiny little tears in the muscle that basically are breaking down the fibres.  When given rest, the muscles will rebuild themselves, growing back stronger so they can be more resilient in the future.

Along with this muscle tearing process, one thing that is often experienced by individuals is a tendency to feel some muscular soreness about a day or so after heavy lifting or strong cardio workouts.  While you do not need to feel muscular soreness in order for it to have been a good workout, the two are often experienced together.

Usually, whenever you attempt a new type of exercise or movement, you will experience greater sorness because your body is not used to the movement pattern.  For this reason, it’s always a good idea to back off the weight slightly when introducing a new type of lift or exercise.

Aside from stretching, one technique that’s catching on as a way to help reduce soreness is foam rolling.  This is commonly also used by physiotherapists when working on patients for reducing muscle tension. 

To do it, you will need to find a tube-like piece of foam that is about ¾-1 foot wide (most gyms have these in the ab-work area, around the exercise balls). They usually have these at most gyms now or else you could pick one up at the physiotherapist’s office or a fitness equipment store.

What you will do is place the foam roller underneath the body part that you are trying to target.  It works well for your back, shoulders, arms, legs and glute muscles.  Once you are in decent balance, then you will want to slowly begin rolling over top of the foam, moving back and forth until you can feel the muscle loosening up.  If you are quite tight, note that there will likely be some discomfort however at no point should you be actually feeling significant pain. If you don’t know what you’re doing, ask a trainer nearby. Chances are good they’d be glad to help you.

You can perform foam rolling immediately after your workout is finished or you can do it later on in the night while watching television. If doing it later on you may want to warm up slightly beforehand as this will increase the blood circulation to the muscle tissue.

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Tags: fitness, foam rolling, health, massage, men, muscle fiber, muscle pull, muscle soreness, muscle strain, muscle tear, preventing doms, pulled muscle, workout pain

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